Freddy vs. Jason rises above the bar in many ways when it comes to horror movies of late. That is, it has tons of gore, a decent amount of nudity and sex, and lots of deaths. Unfortunately, it fails where it most needed to succeed - being even remotely worthwhile.

In the first 15 minutes of the movie, two girls run around - literally - topless, their silicon bouncing up and down very nicely. Blood sprays 10 feet out of wounds that should cause no more than a drip of blood. Jason gets to stab, decapitate and even squish in beds his victims. That is about all that can be said about Freddy vs. Jason, because the rest of the film is almost unbearable to watch.

Freddy Kreuger (Robert Englund) has prevailed through seven movies, some of which were pretty good. The first, featuring the first appearance of Johnny Depp, is classic, and the last one, New Nightmare was about as clever as horror movies come. That one came out in 1994.

We have not been so lucky with the Friday the 13th movies. Prior to this one, there have been ten, the last of which took place far in the future and in space. Jason X was God-awful, one of the worst movies ever made. It is surprising that even a second one was made, as the original Friday the 13th (which does not feature Jason) was nearly just as bad. Jason X flopped at the box office, as did many that came before it, yet for some reason these movies keep being made.

Regardless, the die hard fans of the series have been asking for a Freddy vs. Jason film for nearly a decade now, and finally, the powers that be have given it to them. The good news is that it is much better than Jason X. The bad news is that that doesn't say very much at all.

Freddy vs. Jason is plagued with the typical problems that are found in many horror movies: bad acting, a bad script, and a bad or non-existent plot. However, just because other horror movies have the same problems does not mean that they should be excused; in fact, Freddy vs. Jason has some of the worst acting ever witnessed in theaters, and that acting is complimented by an equally terrible script. There is hardly a line that comes out of any of the characters' mouths that is believable. Freddy vs. Jason actually does have a reasonable plot, or at least a good enough excuse as to why the two monsters get to square off, and how they come back to life. Sort of. Don't think too hard on the subject.

The biggest problem with this movie is that there is just little suspense in a film that features two movie monsters battling each other, both of which cannot be killed. One lives in the dream world, and the other just can't be killed for the sake of making unlimited sequels. We all know that at the end of this movie, there is going to be an open-ended "cliffhanger," so why bother watching in the first place? True, this movie may be for the fans, but no movie should ever be made for a limited audience.

As horror movies go, those in charge completely forgot that they were making such a film. The movie has nudity, gore and violence, but absolutely nothing resembling suspense. There are some jump scenes, but none that are exceptionally good, and the rest of the material just isn't engaging enough to make me give a damn about any of the characters. The only character I actually felt sorry for was Jason, as he looked like he wanted to stab himself and put himself out of his own misery.

It is clear that Freddy vs. Jason is not trying to be anything more than what it is, but it fails on so many levels that it is just inexcusable. Unfortunately, it is also a huge box office success, which means that a dozen more of these God-awful films have funding. Freddy and Jason are both cool and classic movie villains, but any excitement and originality about them vanished more than a decade ago.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.